Three days in Beantown

Boston was lovely. We jumped on the train Saturday morning and it beelined through Stamford Connecticut, Providence Rhode Island and on to Massacheusetts (there's my spelling test over), where the number plates proclaim 'spirit of America'.





Boston was one long history lesson, with the Institute of Contemporary Art thrown in for good measure. This is where Samuel Adams, John Hanock, Paul Revere and others got the whole American Revolution started ( we even saw their oddly engraved graves). The Boston Tea Party, Paul Revere's Midnight Ride and the 'lobsterbacks' (redcoats) taking on local militia and sparking the War of Independence all became clear after a historical trail we followed around Boston and Charlestown (every tourist in Boston was following the same trail).


Boston is known as the 'Cradle of Liberty' (they really do take their freedoms seriously here.)and we also learnt that Boston is called Beantown because they have celebrated baked beans recipes, featuring molasses. (The tinned baked beans here have lots of sugar and are rather sweet. Unexpected...not altogether gross.) New England is also the home of seafood: oysters and lobster particularly. So you can imagine Justin was in heaven ordering 6 different varitieties of oysters and a famed lobster roll for dinner. It seems sacrilege to me to put a lobster in a hot dog bun, but when in Rome...



This weekend was also the playoffs (finals) for the baseball, and the Boston Red Sox won on Sunday night. So you can imagine the whole city was sporting some piece of Red Sox merchandise and Sunday night in the hotel there was a lot of hoo haaing from the big screen TV in the lobby. We watched the game until midnight, where it was 4-3 and then fell asleep. It's pretty hard to get into even when there's a cliffhanger.

Across the river from Boston is Cambridge, home to Harvard, and we had a Sunday pub lunch there before wandering around the campus. Very atmospheric: lots of leafy trees changing colour in the squares and historic residential buildings, libraries and halls lining the yards. It was getting really cold (people wearing fleece pants) so we hustled through. I didn't realise Harvard was founded in the 1600s and named after its principal patron who donated money and his library to get it going.

And there endeth the history lesson.

Getting amongst it

So this week we really hit our stride, it feels. The apartment is feeling lived in and loved, with the addition of some more furniture and plants and we're getting used to the rhythm of the 'hood.

I've worked out what time I need to get on the train to get to work at a decent hour (15 min trip - joy of joys) and how long it takes me to walk home (if I don't stop to gawk at something, which is very hard not to do, 30 mins) Jus has his fave spot at Jefferson Market library, his alternative office, which looks like a castle.

The Time Out magazine is now burgeoning with things to do after the city quietened down over summer. We went and saw the Victorian musician New Buffalo in Williamsburg, some $5 comedy (read = we were the oldest people there) in the Lower East Side that sat 20 people and where Demetri Martin turned up, we booked some tix to go and see some ice hockey at Madison Sq Garden, and we're off to see Spamalot, a Monty Python musical.

So missing TV is pretty much confined to Sunday nights, and that's when Youtube.com comes in handy. (Last weekend Jus and I watched a bunch of Summer Heights High epsidodes to get a fix.) Though we did notice some of the comedy revolved around TV stuff - new shows- and Jus and I sat there like lamposts not laughing, not getting it, and feeling a little odd. "Do you know who he's talking about?" Jus whispered. "I got nothing", I shrugged, and we waited for the bit to move on to something universal like...how lame Halloween is, how hammocks are nets to catch lazy people and how the guy who invented ketchup had no idea it would be so big.

We're going to Boston tomorrow morning because I have to go there for work on Monday so we thought we'd make a long weekend of it. We're catching the train and it takes about 3 hours, going through Connectictut.

Jus and I checked the weather and got a rude shock when it is forecast to be 8c and sunny. 8c for a sunny day! That happened quickly. We both kinda panicked. It actually got really cold today and I started fearing for my warmth. There is an ice skating rink in the park where I used to sweat over my lunch. The cold's a comin', the cold's a comin'...

Hallowe'ird

Well, this pumpking carving site takes the cake. The imagination runs wild. Heaven forbid you would want to eat one of these creations.

At work we are having a pumpkin carving competition, people are expected to dress up, and on Halloween night there is a street parade that runs from Greenwich Village right past our apartment.

At the base of our apartment building a store has opened up selling costumes - costumes for adults - and it has been packed every night for the last 2 weeks.

The drug stores are selling buckets of mixed candy, to dole out to trick or treaters.

Jus and I have been walking around with one eyebrow quizzically raised as the hype and hysteria mounts. In NY, Halloween is bigger than Jesus.

The latest...

Vanderbilt Mansion
Originally uploaded by Meesy

So, its Thursday night. Jus is making cool lamps, as you do when you don't have a telly. He's so handy. We're listening to Beck's Midnight Vultures. I've been doing the clothes washing and had a difficult ethical choice to make: do you toss someone else's clothes out of the machine if its done and no other machines are available? I did, and I felt guilty. What's the right thing to do? Do tell.

Yesterday I was in Detroit for work. Well, to be precise we drove down the freeway from the airport to Ford Road, and then to Mercury Drive, past Fairlane Town, and went to Ford global HQ. Rather beige. I gave a presentation then got back in a car, went back to the airport and back to NY via Chicago. (yes, that is the wrong direction. Its painful. I just close my eyes, lie back and think of the freq-y flyer points.)

Justin has been rustling up furniture from cool sources and slowly, piece by piece, the apartment is taking shape. Bedside table, tick. Lamps, tick. Kettle, tick. Ironing board, tick. You forget the things you need when you're down to a couple of suitcases. Ironing board became immediately apparent and we reluctantly trekked to Bed, Bath and Beyond and walked home with one. Owning two ironing boards in the world is just annoying. I am rather excited though by my Componobili. (I only expect Designer Dan to understand what this means.)

Stevie Abbott was in town last weekend and he suggested we get out of town, so we hired a car and headed for the hills: the Catskills, Rip van Winkle country. We were all a tad anxious about driving out of New York but with, Barbara, our GPS lady, intoning the way, we all got comfortable and managed only to take three wrong turns and drive the wrong way up a highway ramp once. We listened to Barbara very closely until we got out into the small towns and winding roads though the red, orange, yellow and green leaves. Then we turned Barbara off and found Woodstock, which has a gentle New Age current flowing through it (lots of purple velvet, spirit-related stores, Hendrix posters, tie dye, howling coyotes, dream catchers) but is mostly a cute town full of tourists. They were having a film festival , so it was quite busy.

We saw two dudes for whom the party had never stopped, a store with a 'Hippies Welcome' sign, a few music studios and lots of alternative teenagers who no doubt have very free-thinking parents. It reminded me a bit of Daylesford.

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Jus and Steve were nursing serious hangovers (pints, jet lag and pseudoephedrine make a sweaty, porcelain-grabbing combo) so we made our way to the Scribner Hollow Lodge, our inn for the evening, and had naps before a massive 4-courser in the dining room. A pianist sang Latin hits and soul anthems from the bar while we had hairs of the dog (hair of the dogs?): it was like our iPod was on a 'dinner party' playlist. I thought she was excellent and sang along a bit. It was that kind of place, and I'm that kind of gal.

We saw a bear alert sign (akin to our bush fire safety signs), a nuclear power plant, a lot of red barns, where FDR was born...everywhere you turned there was a 'this happened here' plaque.

Anyway, we survived driving back into the city and now we're exhilarated because the whole countryside beckons! Within a couple of hours you can drive or train to Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Massacheussets, Rhode Island, Maryland...I have no idea what you can do in all those places but it sounds exciting.

Here are some random photos of stuff.

And someone at work has started calling me Meesy! What the! How do they know?

It's official

We really do work for Microsoft. One immediately good thing: we get to buy discounted stuff from the Microsoft online store, so I might one day get actual licensed software for our home computer!

Can u tell i have deadlines?

Halloween approaches and master craftsman , Justin Northrop, carved a classic picture perfect, apartment-sized Jack O Lantern to scare the spirits from our flat. Isn't he a marvel? His first time and he carved a masterpiece.

When I got home from work the apartment was all snug and pumpkin-y smelling. Those tea lights end up slowing roasting the pumpkin flesh and the most cosy aroma pervades the house. I think I'll sprinkle some vanilla and cinnammon in the pumpkin and get some aromatherapy going on. Yep, we caught the pumpkin fever.

We've been Skyping with the Northrops, and Mumma had her first introduction to web cams. The image above is the view we had on our PC of Mumma, Lis and Diane crowding around their web cam, chatting to us. Mumma had this expression of sheer incredulity the entire conversation: priceless! I do continue to love the internet...

Will do a big post this weekend. We finally got broadband at home (all this time we've been skunging free wifi from a benevolent neighbour, unbenownst to them of course) and I have a bunch of photos to download from the digi: we've had mum and Allan and Steve Abbott in town, we went to Woodstock, I went to Motor City Detroit, and Jus and I joined the Y. Yes, the YMCA in the Village, people! Does it get any more ridiculous?

BTW It is so hard to flip between our/or, s/z, er/re, ll/l every time I stop writing for locals and pen something for an Australian audience. It is really taxing my frontal cortex and I just know it is going to damage my Scrabble game. I have always prided myself on being a good speller (well you gotta be proud about something) but now my whole vocabulary is going to hell. Wouldn't it be handy if people came with a language preference switch too?

Supersize

A tableau of excess:

1. Upper West Side Mexican restaurant where you order guacamole and the waiter makes it for you, by your table, using at least 2 avocadoes, to serve two people.

2. A 'small' Coke at the cinema.

3. Mum laughing at the enormity of her pancake stack.

4. The 4 inch thickness of the Sunday New York Times, which includes 2 magazines and a literary supplement, plus countless catalogues.

Pumpkin Mania

Well everywhere you turn you see pumpkins. Fall is here, along with all things harvest-y, and therefore Halloween-y and it seems pumpkins have taken over Manhattan.

The markets are exploding with all sorts of squashes, gourds and pumpkins (varieties I've never seen or heard of before) and everywhere is decorated with harvest or Halloween themes. I mean everywhere: supermarkets, banks, furniture stores, clothing stores, offices. You can buy pumpkin-themed everything, from serving platters at Pottery Barn to a pumpkin spice latte at Starbucks, and every place is draped in red, orange and brown tones.

Behold the pumpkin, New York. I always thought pumpkins were under-rated, its good to see this full embrace. I even stumbled across a pumpkin scone.

I can finally get off the rollercoaster

Wow, what a long ride. From the dizzying highs of our first company-subsidised apartment with park views, to the tantrum-inducing lows of a crummy dive of a hotel with a shared bathroom in the Upper West Side, we have finally moved in to our very own apartment.





I was filled with trepidation on Friday when I went to work and left Jus on the sidewalk out the front of the hotel we slummed in between our tenancy at the last place finishing and the new place starting, with all our worldly possessions in bags on the sidewalk next to him, waiting to get the OK from the super that we could move in, or get the not ok and check in to another over-priced crap hotel. He sat there for almost 5 hours before getting the nod that the keys were ready.





I finished work and we went to a department store and bough a doona, pillows and blankets etc and spent Friday night in the new apartment sleeping on the floor on all our clothes and towels and stuff. (The homeless people outside put everything in perspective, and a glass of Chandon helped.) Our bed arrived Saturday morning, and the couch comes tomorrow (and we have invested in a fold out couch for all you visitors), and until then we've made good use of free wifi, cinemas and cafes where you can sit all day on one coffee.



The place is ace: perfect size, walk to everywhere, comfy...Jus did an amazing job securing it and schlepping all our stuff there.

Saturday morning we blitzed the stores for plates, glasses, bins and hangers and that afternoon we headed to Prospect Park for a picnic with Andrew 'Clicky' Green, Natalie and Jim. Bit of frisbee, drop of Hugel, bite of guacamole and a lovely fall day for all the stress to melt away.

I'll send out a broadcast email with our new contact details :)